Looking And Lost, Yet Found
by donutsweeper
Summary: Thea knew she loved her big brother, but, after the island, she wasn't sure she knew who he was.


Thea was twelve when father and brother died- half her family was gone, just like that. It was devastating, but not necessarily for the reasons most people thought. "Oh, you poor dear," she'd hear over and over again, "How terrible it must be to lose your daddy like that." She'd loved her father, sure, what kid didn't? But losing Oliver? Oliver was her big brother and he had been her world. It felt like she'd chased after Ollie her whole life, and without him there was nothing but a vast empty world around her that she filled however she could. Alcohol. Pills. Parties. Anything and everything. And none of it mattered.

Then, suddenly, Oliver was alive. Alive and standing in the foyer. She ran down the stairs and threw herself into his arms and hugged him with all her might. And, after a moment, he hugged her back, but his movements were awkward. It was almost like he didn't know what to do with his hands. Like he didn't know how to hug people anymore. Or, maybe, like he didn't know how to be with people.

She didn't say anything; her brother had returned from the dead, who cared if he got a little flustered over something as basic as a welcome home hug? He was still her Oliver, her big brother, at that was all that mattered right?

Except it wasn't.

Oliver wasn't the same person he had been before he'd gone away. She knew he barely slept anymore; she could hear him pacing in his room late into the night and the few times he did seem to sleep she could tell he had terrible nightmares because he'd cry out, waking her more than once. Not that she'd ever tell him that. And there were his smiles, Oliver's smiles used to be so free, so easy. He rarely smiled now, and if he did? They never quite reached his eyes. But what hurt her most of all was how he almost never touched anyone if he could avoid it, not even her.

When she was a kid Ollie had always tugged on her hair to get her attention, friendly punches to the arms happened all the time, and they'd had some tickle fights that had needed outside intervention to break them up. But now? He never seemed to know what to do with his hands, leaving them to hang loosely at his sides. Just looking at how he stood, his hands tense and the way back was always so straight, painfully straight, made her uncomfortable. It was like he couldn't relax. Like he'd forgotten how.

She didn't know what to do. He was Oliver, her big brother, returned from the dead, except he wasn't _her _Oliver. He was someone she didn't know- a stranger wearing a familiar face. And she was so _mad,_ so impossibly angry at the unfairness of it all that she wanted to push him away and hide from this man her brother had become so she could remember the brother he had been. The brother she missed. The brother she loved.

And then there was the way he acted some time. He was always so busy, rushing out the door without barely a word. And when he did talk to them? It was all lies and doubletalk. She should know, she'd become the master of the well placed bit of misdirection and deception these past few years. She wanted to grab and shake him and yell, "You're home now! We are here for you! But, damn it, Oliver, where the hell are you?"

It was a conversation with her mom that made her realize just how frustrated and how _sad_ it all made her. "I just think," her mom had said, "that we need to stop judging him for the Oliver he was and start accepting him for the Oliver he is." And that was the problem, because she didn't _know_ who Oliver was now. Maybe she could do something about that...

The plan that she settled on was simple and easy to implement. The next time she heard him moving about in his room instead of sleeping she slipped into the hall and made quite the production of pretending to sneak past his door. "Whoa there, Speedy. Just where do you think you're going this time of night?" His tone was rough and worried. She wasn't sure if he was trying to tease her or accuse her of something. Considering their relationship of late, both were equally possible.

Leaning against the doorframe she replied, "It's two a.m.," in as conspiratorially a manner possible, putting the first part of her plan into motion, getting his attention.

"Yes, exactly." Quickly pulling on his robe, Oliver never let her see his scan again if he could avoid it, he walked over and pulled his door open all the way. "It's late. Two a.m. is late. Very late."

"While that may be the case, it just so happens that two a.m. is also the perfect time for chocolate cake."

"I see," he said slowly. She wasn't sure if he was buying it, but there was the smallest of grins on his face. So far so good, then.

Step one accomplished she moved on to step two, get him talking. "Do you know what's better than a big piece of chocolate cake by yourself at two a.m.?"

"Sleeping?"

"Ollie!" She punched his arm playfully, like she used to do when they were kids. "No! What's better than having a big piece of chocolate cake by yourself is _sharing _a _very _big piece of chocolate cake at two a.m."

"Oh, really?" He was definitely smiling now, his eyes even had those little crinkles they always used to get when he'd laugh at one of her jokes. "And let me guess, we just happen to have some chocolate cake down in kitchen right now."

"We do! That's very perceptive of you, I'm almost surprised how perceptive. You've gotten quick on the uptake in your old age."

"I'm not old!"

"No, of course not. Did I say that? I would never say that to my big brother. My _older _brother."

"_Theeee_aaaa." There. That was what she'd been waiting for. Step three, get him comfortable enough to tease her again. Now onto step four.

"Now, big brother," she said, threading her arm into his and pulling him into the hall. "You're not going to make me eat it all by my lonesome, are you?"

"You make it sound like that would be terrible."

"It would be terrible," she deadpanned. "Practically a fate worse than death."

He laughed. Actually laughed. "Well, we can't have that, can we? Not when it is within my power to save you from such a thing."

"I knew I could count on you," she said, and she couldn't help smiling as the two of them walked arm in arm down to the kitchen. Not only was her getting-to-know-Oliver plan was coming along nicely, but there was going to be chocolate cake too. All in all, things were looking good.


End file.
